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Human and Economic Geography

Human features of places: cities, towns, villages, ports, factories and farms; types of settlement and land use; economic activity and trade links; how natural resources such as energy, food, minerals and water are spread around the world

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What a learner can do afterwards

  • Use terms for human features correctly when describing places (e.g., port, harbour, factory, office)
  • Describe land use in an area from a map or a walk (e.g., housing, farming, industry, shops)
  • Explain a trade link or resource pattern (e.g., 'oil comes from a few places, so tankers carry it around the world')

The lesson

Every place has natural features, like rivers and hills, and human features, things people built. Human features include ports, factories, farms, shops, offices and homes.

Land use means how people use the ground in an area. Look at a map or take a walk, and you can sort the land into groups: housing, farming, industry and shops.

Homes40Shops20Farms25Factories15
This town uses most of its land for homes, with the rest split between farms, shops and factories.
Try it together

Mia visits a busy port near her home. She sees cranes lifting containers onto huge ships. The port sends food grown nearby to other countries, and ships bring back oil and metal that her country does not have enough of.

Good to know

On your next walk or car ride, look for clues. A tall chimney often means a factory. Fields and greenhouses mean farming. Cranes and containers mean a port.

Places have human features like ports and factories, land is used in different ways, and trade moves resources such as food, oil and minerals around the world.

Watch it

Where it sits

Where this leads

Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.

Then practise

8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.

Human and Economic Geography · Geography, ages 8 to 11 · LightMySky